be granted to the National head, and that these require a different organization of the Fœderal Government; a single body being an unsafe depository of such ample authorities. In conceding all this, the question of expense must be given up; for it is impossible, with any degree of safety, to narrow the foundation upon which the system is to stand. The two branches of the Legislature are, in the first instance, to consist of only sixty-five which is the same number of which congress, persons, under the existing Confederation, may be composed. It is true, that this number is intended to be increased; but this is to keep pace with the progress of the population and resources of the country. It is evident that a less number would, even in the first instance, have been unsafe; and that a continuance of the present number would, in a more advanced stage of population, be a very inadequate representation of the People.

Whence is the dreaded augmentation of expense to spring? One source indicated, is the multiplication of offices under the new Government. Let us examine this a little.

It is evident that the principal departments of the administration under the present Government, are the same which will be required under the new. There are now a Secretary of War, a Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a Secretary for Domestic Affairs, a Board of Treasury consisting of three persons, a Treasurer, assistants, clerks, &c. These offices are indispensable under any system, and will suffice under the new as well as the old. As to Ambassadors and other ministers and agents in foreign countries, the proposed Constitution can make no other difference, than to render their characters, where they reside, more respectable, and their services more useful. As to persons to be employed in the collection of the revenues, it is unquestionably true that these will form a very considerable addition to the number of Fœderal offi

cers; but it will not follow, that this will occasion an increase of public expense. It will be in most cases nothing more than an exchange of State for National officers. In the collection of all duties, for instance, the persons employed will be wholly of the latter description. The States individually will stand in no need of any for this purpose. What difference can it make in point of expense, to pay officers of the customs appointed by the State or by the United States? There is no good reason to suppose, that either the number or the salaries of the latter, will be greater than those of the former.

Where then are we to seek for those additional articles of expense, which are to swell the account to the enormous size that has been represented to us? The chief item which occurs to me, respects the support of the Judges of the United States. I do not add the President, because there is now a President of Congress, whose expenses may not be far, if anything, short of those which will be incurred on account of the President of the United States. The support of the Judges will clearly be an extra expense, but to what extent will depend on the particular plan which may be adopted in regard to this matter. But upon no reasonable plan can it amount to a sum which will be an object of material consequence.

Let us now see what there is to counterbalance any extra expense that may attend the establishment of the proposed Government. The first thing which presents itself is, that a great part of the business which now keeps Congress sitting through the year, will be transacted by the President. Even the management of foreign negotiations will naturally devolve upon him, according to general principles concerted with the Senate, and subject to their final concurrence. Hence it is evident, that a portion of the year will suffice for the session of both the Senate and the House of Representatives: we may

suppose about a fourth for the latter, and a third, or perhaps half, for the former. The extra business of treaties and appointments may give this extra occupation to the Senate. From this circumstance we may infer, that until the House of Representatives shall be increased greatly beyond its present number, there will be a considerable saving of expense from the difference between the constant session of the present, and the temporary session of the future Congress.

But there is another circumstance, of great importance in the view of economy. The business of the United States has hitherto occupied the State Legislatures, as well as Congress. The latter has made requisitions which the former have had to provide for. Hence it has happened, that the sessions of the State Legislatures have been protracted greatly beyond what was necessary for the execution of the mere local business of the States. More than half their time has been frequently employed in matters which related to the United States. Now the members who compose the legislatures of the several States amount to two thousand and upwards; which number has hitherto performed what under the new system will be done in the first instance by sixty-five persons, and probably at no future period by above a fourth or a fifth of that number. The Congress under the proposed Government will do all the business of the United States themselves, without the intervention of the State Legislatures, who thenceforth will have only to attend to the affairs of their particular States, and will not have to sit in any proportion as long as they have heretofore done. This difference, in the time of the sessions of the State Legislatures, will be clear gain, and will alone form an article of saving, which may be regarded as an equivalent for any additional objects of expense that may be occasioned by the adoption of the new system. The result from these observations is, that the sources

of additional expense from the establishment of the proposed Constitution, are much fewer than may have. been imagined; that they are counterbalanced by considerable objects of saving; and that while it is questionable on which side the scale will preponderate, it is certain that a Government less expensive would be incompetent to the purposes of the Union.

PUBLIUS.

[From M'LEAN's Edition, New York, M.DCC.LXXXVIII.]

[THE FEDERALIST.] No. LXXXV.

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK:]

ACCORDING to the formal division of the subject

of these papers, announced in my first number, there would appear still to remain for discussion, two points,"the analogy of the proposed Government to your own "State Constitution," and "the additional security which "its adoption will afford to republican Government, to "liberty, and to property." But these heads have been so fully anticipated and exhausted in the progress of the work, that it would now scarcely be possible to do anything more than repeat, in a more dilated form, what has been heretofore said; which the advanced stage of the question, and the time already spent upon it, conspire to forbid.

It is remarkable, that the resemblance of the plan of the Convention to the Act which organizes the Government of this State holds, not less with regard to many of the supposed defects, than to the real excellences of the former. Among the pretended defects, are the reeligibility of the Executive; the want of a Council; the

omission of a formal Bill of Rights; the omission of a provision respecting the liberty of the press: these and several others, which have been noted in the course of our inquiries, are as much chargeable on the existing Constitution of this State, as on the one proposed for the Union; and a man must have slender pretensions to consistency, who can rail at the latter for imperfections, which he finds no difficulty in excusing in the former. Nor indeed can there be a better proof of the insincerity and affectation of some of the zealous adversaries of the plan of the Convention among us, who profess to be the devoted admirers of the Government under which they live, than the fury with which they have attacked that plan, for matters in regard to which our own Constitution is equally, or perhaps more vulnerable.

The additional securities to republican Government, to liberty, and to property, to be derived from the adoption of the plan under consideration, consist chiefly in the restraints which the preservation of the Union will impose on local factions and insurrections, and on the ambition of powerful individuals in single States, who might acquire credit and influence enough, from leaders and favorites, to become the despots of the People; in the diminution of the opportunities to foreign intrigue, which the dissolution of the Confederacy would invite and facilitate; in the prevention of extensive military establishments, which could not fail to grow out of wars between the States in a disunited situation; in the express guaranty of a republican form of Government to each; in the absolute and universal exclusion of titles of nobility; and in the precautions against the repetition of those practices on the part of the State Governments, which have undermined the foundations of property and credit, have planted mutual distrust in the breasts of all classes of citizens, and have occasioned an almost universal prostration of morals.